- SCOTUS Questions Role of Race in State Election Maps
Source: New York Times
“The Supreme Court is hearing a case on Wednesday whose outcome could cause congressional seats throughout the country to flip from blue to red to cement Republican control of Congress. The case, a challenge to Louisiana’s congressional map, is a battle over whether states can use race as a factor in drawing electoral districts. But it could have much broader implications for the law, politics, and the remaining pillar of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. … Chief Justice John Roberts asked the lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund about the proper role of race in drawing congressional boundaries. … Justice Kavanaugh suggests that aspects of the Voting Rights Act might have an implicit sunset date, like the 25-year deadline Justice O’Connor proposed for race-conscious admissions in higher education in 2003.” (10/15/25)
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10/15/us/supreme-court-voting-rights
- ICC disqualifies chief prosecutor from Duterte case over perceived conflict of interest
Source: ABC News
“Judges at the International Criminal Court on Wednesday disqualified the court’s chief prosecutor from the case against former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who is charged with involvement in dozens of killings as part of his so-called ‘war on drugs’ when in office. The written decision cited a ‘reasonable appearance of bias’ because Prosecutor Karim Khan — before he took office — represented victims of Duterte’s alleged crimes. The decision, dated Oct. 2 but released in redacted form on Wednesday, comes with Khan already having stepped back in May from his duties pending the outcome of an independent investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.” (10/15/25)
- FL: Judge grants woman restraining order against creepy politician ex-boyfriend
Source: The Independent
“Cory Mills, a Florida Republican congressman, has been hit with a restraining order that prevents him from contacting an ex-partner for reasons of ‘protection against dating violence.’ Lindsey Langston, his ex-girlfriend, filed a petition in August and claimed that the Republican was threatening to release nude images and videos to blackmail her. … According to the order, he is now barred from contacting Langston until January 1 or directly referring to her on social media. … Allegedly, the relationship crumbled after Langston saw reports that Mills had been involved in a physical altercation with a woman in Washington, DC. … Sarah Raviani, 27, allegedly called the police to the conservative’s apartment in Washington D.C., and claimed that he had assaulted her.” (10/15/125)
- France: Top court upholds ban threatening Marine Le Pen’s 2027 candidacy
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“France’s highest administrative court rejected a challenge to electoral rules by far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Wednesday, dealing a blow to her efforts to overturn a sentence that could derail her candidacy in the 2027 presidential election. Le Pen was barred in March from seeking public office for five years after a French court convicted her and other members of her party for misappropriation of funds. Le Pen has said the case and the decision were politically motivated. The Paris Criminal Court sentenced Le Pen to four years in prison, including two to be served, a 100,000€ ($116,230.00) fine and a five-year ban on holding public office, which is immediately enforceable despite pending appeals. Le Pen had argued that the immediate application of the law that bars people convicted of certain crimes – including those related to corruption, fraud, or misuse of public funds – unfairly infringed upon her political rights.” (10/15/25)
- MA: Moulton to challenge Markey for US Senate seat
Source: Seattle Times
“U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, a moderate Massachusetts Democrat, said Wednesday that he will challenge U.S. Sen. Edward Markey for the Democratic nomination in next year’s Senate race, arguing it’s time for the party to embrace a new generation of leadership. The announcement makes the race one of the most anticipated primary contests in the country and pits two of the heavily Democratic state’s top politicians against one another. Markey, who fended off a challenge in 2020 from Rep. Joe Kennedy III in the Senate primary, would be 80 before his third six-year term would begin.” (10/15/25)
- Myanmar: Junta Chief Admits Election Won’t Be Nationwide as War Continues
Source: US News & World Report
“Myanmar’s junta chief acknowledged on Wednesday that the military-backed administration will be unable to conduct an upcoming general election across the entire country, as a civil war triggered by a 2021 coup rages on. Critics and many Western nations view the election — due to start in late December and the first since the coup — as a sham exercise to legitimise the military’s rule via proxy political parties. Dozens of anti-junta parties are either banned or refusing to take part. The Southeast Asian nation has been in turmoil since the coup, which deposed an elected civilian government and triggered a nationwide armed rebellion that has wrested swathes of territory from the military.” (10/15/25)
- Germany: Regime’s military enslavement scheme stalls after defense minister’s objections
Source: Politico
“Germany’s plan to bring back a form of conscription was derailed late Tuesday after last-minute objections from Defense Minister Boris Pistorius upended an agreement among the country’s governing parties, multiple people familiar with the matter told POLITICO. Lawmakers from the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats had spent the past week finalizing a compromise to revive military service under the Defense Service Modernization Act — a flagship project of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government to rebuild the Bundeswehr’s depleted ranks. But several parliamentary officials said the deal was halted after Pistorius expressed concerns over key aspects of the draft during a meeting of the parliamentary group of the Social Democrats on Tuesday evening. … The plan had already faced resistance in parliament.” (10/15/25)
https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-could-bring-back-conscription-by-lottery
- US regime pays for 2025’s most expensive political ad campaign
Source: Axios
“The most expensive political ad campaign of the year is being run by the Department of Homeland Security. DHS disputes that its ads are political. But it has spent at least $51 million this year on ads thanking President Trump for securing the border, according to AdImpact. The next closest ad campaign is the $41 million effort to support California’s redistricting measure, according to AdImpact. … ‘[T]his isn’t a political ad — this is a public service announcement urging illegal aliens to leave,’ Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to Axios. ‘President Trump’ is the most mentioned phrase across all the ads. Three ads say: ‘Thank you, President Donald J. Trump for securing our border and putting America first.'” (10/15/25)
- Italy: Protesters demand Israel boycott before World Cup qualifier
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Italy’s 2026 World Cup qualifier against Israel was preceded by clashes between some pro-Palestinian demonstrators and police, while thousands of others peacefully marched through Udine in protest at the hosting of a match they felt should not be played. The Gaza ceasefire agreement signed on Monday, along with an exchange of captives between Israel and Hamas, did nothing to diminish the resolve of about 10,000 protesters who descended on the small city in Italy’s far northeast, a small section of whom were involved in unrest at the end of the march.” (10/15/25)
- Russia’s Collectivist Cult of the Strong State
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Bart Frazier“Through much of the remainder of the 19th century and an early part of the 20th century, the idea of liberty that de Tocqueville highlighted remained central to the American experience. But today, America in practice has become more guided by a set of ideas closer to those of the Russians than to our own ancestors. Ours may seem like a kinder and gentler political paternalism and system of plunder than in Russia, but our own variation on the collectivist theme has come to dominate America as well.” (10/15/25)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/russias-collectivist-cult-of-the-strong-state/
- Let’s shut down government for real
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal“Recently, everyone has been up in arms over a supposed government shutdown. The same way they were over the last few and will be when the next regularly scheduled shutdowns roll around. Some act as if this hasn’t become normal political theatrics. I’m not sure which rock they’ve been hiding under for the past few decades, but it must be a remote one. These same people are trying to decide who’s to blame. Blame? Instead of assigning blame, if there were a government shutdown, I would suggest proudly claiming credit for the accomplishment. Blame belongs to those who want to end the shutdown and open government back up, not those who keep it shut down.” (10/15/25)
- Free Trade and Dynamic Efficiency
Source: EconLog
by Arnold Kling“The usual case for free trade is not the best case for free trade. The usual case is based on static efficiency, meaning making better use of a fixed set of resources. Economists use the term comparative advantage to describe how, if humans choose to specialize and trade with one another, each can end up better off than if they produce everything for themselves. But trade has an even more important role to play in what economists have come to call dynamic efficiency, which is the ability of an economy to exploit innovation and increase living standards over time. This dynamic efficiency is a central concern of the economists who shared the 2025 Nobel Prize: Philippe Aghion, Peter Howitt, and Joel Mokyr.” (10/15/25)
- The Federal Workforce Will Be a Little Smaller after the Government Shutdown Ends
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille“As promised — or threatened, if you wandered over to Reason by accident — the Trump administration has started using the government sort-of-shutdown as an opportunity to engage in mass layoffs of federal employees. In the game of chicken between Republicans and Democrats over just how much the government should overspend and on what, the losers so far appear to be some of the almost 3 million Americans who thought federal employment would be a comfortable way to collect a paycheck. Setting thousands of former government workers loose to seek jobs elsewhere — preferably not involving money forcibly extracted from taxpayers — is a step in the right direction.” (10/15/25)
- The Peace in Gaza Won’t Last
Source: Foreign Policy
by Stephen M Walt“We can all be grateful that the slaughter in Gaza has been suspended, at least temporarily; that Israeli hostages and Palestinian [hostages] are being exchanged; and that relief aid can flow more freely to the suffering Gazan population. Not surprisingly, U.S. President Donald Trump is taking a victory lap and calling the cease-fire agreement the ‘historic dawn of a new Middle East.’ … I hope he’s right, but I wouldn’t bet on it. There are two lingering questions looming in the aftermath of the present agreement. The first question, obviously, is: ‘Will it hold?’ The second question — on which the answer to the first largely depends — is whether Israel’s relations with the rest of the world, and especially its ‘special relationship’ with the United States, are evolving in ways that might make a lasting peace possible at long last.” (10/15/25)
- A Government Shutdown Is Less Scary Than Its Dysfunction-As-Usual
Source: The Daily Economy
by Scott Drylie“There will be thousands of genuine stories of hardship and frustration that will emerge from this shutdown. There will be waste, interruptions, and inefficiency. Still, from a whole-of-society perspective, shutdowns have historically been much ado about little. Government is not shut and it is usually only moderately and briefly down.” (10/15/25)
- Masked law enforcement enters a danger zone beyond US democracy
Source: The Hill
by James D Zirin“The history of masks dates to prehistoric times, where they served diverse cultural purposes. Masks were used in dramatic performance in ancient Greece, to protect against plague in the Middle Ages and for entertainment purposes throughout history. Fictional masked figures include such superheroes as Batman, Zorro or the Lone Ranger. Also, there are villains like Hannibal Lecter or Darth Vader who wore masks to create a scary presence. Face it, masks are intended to be intimidating, even on Halloween. But the practice of mask wearing by federal agents making arrests or controlling crowds is a novelty, particularly when their actions are the subject of civil liberties court challenges.” (10/15/25)
https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/5554243-masked-ice-agents-chicago/
- The Right Needs to Reject Conservatism
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Connor O’Keeffe“[W]hen it comes to fighting back against progressivism, socialism, globalism, interventionism, or whatever you want to call the ideology of the political establishment, the American right has long struggled to do so meaningfully. The reason was best explained in a 1938 pamphlet by the Old Right writer Garet Garrett, called The Revolution Was. Garrett witnessed a conservative movement that was similarly staring down a powerful coalition of New Deal Democrats, crony business leaders, and outright socialists …. In his pamphlet, Garrett argued that the fundamental problem with the conservatives of his day was that they were looking in the wrong direction. … as long as the American right ignored the institutional changes that had already happened and, therefore, allowed them to remain in place, it was effectively a certainty that they would lose. That what they were advocating against would come to pass.” (10/15/25)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/right-needs-reject-conservatism
- The Threat to Liberty is Coming from Inside the House
Source: Mindset Shifts
by Barry Brownstein“You might be, as I am, alarmed about the future of liberty. How deep are the roots of liberty when so many submitted to authoritarian measures in response to COVID, and approved the use of coercion against those less eager to comply? Unable to visualize alternatives, public acceptance of top-down coercive solutions to COVID demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice liberty for the promise of safety. To restore liberty, our understanding of liberty needs to deepen.” (10/15/25)
https://mindsetshifts.substack.com/p/the-threat-to-liberty-is-coming-from-2b7
- Too Hot to Handle
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler“Between May 17 and September 30, there were 3,832 deaths in Spain linked to extreme heat, an increase of almost 87% from 2024. Many of these victims had underlying health conditions, 96% were over 65, and almost two thirds were 85 or older. But boiling Spanish summers are not a new phenomenon, nor is the global warming that politicians like to blame whenever fatalities result from extreme weather. The awkward truth for Spain’s Socialist-led government, which has promised to reduce socioeconomic inequality, is that energy poverty is the more decisive factor in heat-related deaths.” (10/15/25)
- The Politics of Fear in American History
Source: Liberal Currents
by Guillaume AW Attia“The failure of liberal-minded politicians to keep government officials accountable is a cause for great fear, especially when those state actors are perceived to be actively and intentionally undermining the public’s sense of security. As the American philosopher Judith Shklar explains, what she calls the ‘liberalism of fear’ regards ‘abuses of public powers in all regimes with equal trepidation.’ Knowing that ‘every page of political history’ teaches that ‘some agents of government will behave lawlessly and brutally in small or big ways most of the time unless they are prevented from doing so,’ a liberalism that considers the propagation of fear in society an evil will worry ‘about the excesses of official agents at every level of government.'” (10/15/25)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-politics-of-fear-in-american-history/
- Antifa in Popular Ontology
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“What do Jimmy Kimmel and the late J. Edgar Hoover have in common? A kink for women’s dresswear? Nope. Both denied the existence of major criminal organizations. Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1924 to 1972, refused to affirm that the Mafia crime syndicate existed. Repeatedly, over the years. Rumors that he was being blackmailed by the Mafia itself, over his own cross-dressing kinks (the mob allegedly had photos), is not affirmed by major historians, who say his denial-of-the-facts was just politics. So when we encounter those rejecting the reality of Antifa, take them with a grain of salt.” (10/15/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/10/15/antifa-in-popular-ontology/
- Infant Adoption is Now Tragically Rare
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan“Since 2017, I’ve known that international adoption is in decline. But only recently, while writing the introduction to the 15th-anniversary edition of Selfish Reasons, did I realize that both forms of infant adoption in the United States have become incredibly rare. Domestically, birth parents only put about one out of every 200 babies born up for adoption. … Internationally, the situation is even bleaker. In 2004, U.S. international adoptions peaked at 22,988. In 2023, the last available year, the total was just 1,275 — a 94% fall. Two decades ago, the market share of imported adoptees was about 50%. Now it’s about 7%.” (10/15/25)
- Trump’s sacrilegious campaign to put his name on everything
Source: Washington Post
by Theodore R Johnson“Trump’s approach to the presidency has been the same as his business strategy, one that’s uncommon for democracies: putting his name and personal brand on everything, building monuments to himself along the way. He hung his massive portrait on buildings around the nation’s capital. He has gilded the Oval Office, put his name on the border wall and on federal stimulus checks, and bathed his career and venues in a sea of American flags. Republicans have proposed legislation to make his birthday a federal holiday, carve his face into Mount Rushmore, and rename D.C.’s Metro system and one of its airports after him. These kinds of civil religious measures canonize the man more than the country and its founding ideals. … Similarly, earlier this year, officials assured the public that the grandiosity of the Army’s 250th anniversary parade had nothing to do with its occurrence on Trump’s birthday.” (10/15/25)
- Abraham and Isaac
Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson“It is a funny thing, that old-time American religion. For a time, John Brown belonged to a Congregationalist church in Hudson, Ohio. He attended a prayer meeting there following the death of abolitionist editor Elijah Lovejoy, who died defending his printing press from a mob of slavery supporters. Brown apparently said little or nothing until the end of the meeting, at which point he stood up and spoke: ‘Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery.’ Unlike those show ponies angling for future Fox News gigs at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, John Brown meant it. He was that most dangerous and terrible sort of American: a believer.” (10/15/25)
https://thedispatch.com/article/john-brown-harpers-ferry-slavery/
- Removal Power and the Original Presidency
Source: Law & Liberty
by Ilan Wurman“The conventional view of executive power among formalists is that the Vesting Clause grants a ‘residuum’ of executive powers, including, for example, foreign affairs-related powers traditionally exercised by the British monarch. If removal is executive in nature, and the Constitution does not assign that power elsewhere or otherwise limit the president’s exercise of it, then it vests in the president by virtue of the residuum. As I have written elsewhere, I agree with Nelson and Mortenson that this account of the Vesting Clause is likely incorrect. My view is that ‘the executive power’ is a substantive grant of power, but of only one: the power to oversee the execution of the laws. But that power, I argue, includes removal — not because removal was a freestanding executive prerogative, but rather because it was part and parcel of the power to oversee the execution of the laws.” (10/15/25)
https://lawliberty.org/removal-power-and-the-original-presidency/
- Undeserved Peace Prize Paves the Path to War
Source: The American Conservative
by Ted Snider“The historical record shows that, far from meeting the ‘three criteria … for selection of a Peace Prize laureate,’ [María Corina] Machado spectacularly fails all three. Machado did not bring Venezuela’s opposition together. The Nobel committee says that ‘Machado has been a key, unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided.’ That, Yale University history professor Greg Grandin says, is not true: ‘Machado is not a unifier, as the committee said. She represents the most intransigent face of the opposition.’ … More importantly, Machado has not fought for democracy. … Though the Nobel Prize committee makes its case by focusing exclusively on the controversial 2024 election, Machado’s career didn’t start there. … Not only has Machado not fought for democracy in Venezuela, she has neither fought for a ‘peaceful transition to democracy’ nor used ‘the tools of peace.'” (10/15/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/undeserved-peace-prize-paves-the-path-to-war/
- Government-run schools and religious liberty
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton“We are far from the first to point out that for a truly free people, schools and the state are not compatible. Part of the reason is that state schools do not accept nor truly support the idea of religious liberty. At least any religion except the worship of the omnipotent state. What goes on in Colorado is an example of that. Looking back with 20-20 hindsight, we see that promoting the necessity and acceptance of the power of governments as a primary purpose for ‘public schools’ – government-run, tax-funded institutions. To promote servitude to the state: to governments. Part of that is brainwashing even (and especially) children to see government as the primary (if not only) provider of all good things.” (10/14/25)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2025/10/14/government-run-schools-and-religious-liberty/
- The Right Wing Desperately Wants to Make Charlie Kirk Its MLK
Source: The Intercept
by Alain Stephens“They keep carving out calendar space for Charlie Kirk — days of remembrance, resolutions, flag orders — demanding the hush and reverence reserved for real moral witnesses. Congress moved to mark today as a ‘National Day of Remembrance;’ the White House ordered flags at half-staff after his death; towns are issuing local proclamations like it’s a civic sacrament. … The goal of the far right, Christian nationalists, and white supremacists in this moment is clear: to fix Kirk in the public imagination where Dr. King once stood. But the point isn’t to honor a tradition of justice — it’s to replace it entirely.” (10/14/25)
https://theintercept.com/2025/10/14/charlie-kirk-remembrance-mlk/
- America’s Middle Class Has Not Been Hollowed Out. Far from It.
Source: Cato Institute
by Norbert Michel“Populists from both major U.S. political parties have ditched the founding American principles that are integral to the nation’s economic and social development. … These principles, though imperfectly implemented, have proven invaluable to Americans. Tragically, the populists’ positions have been based on myths and deceit from the beginning. They insist that somewhere around the 1970s, the American middle class was hollowed out. As this story goes, policy makers’ blind adherence to free-market ideology triggered the catastrophe by killing the U.S. manufacturing sector. Those lucky few Americans who could find new jobs took low-paying ones in the service sector, and personal-income growth flatlined for the next five decades. It’s difficult to explain just how much is wrong with this story. For starters, Americans’ income growth over the past five decades has not been stagnant. It’s been great — and not just for the rich.” (10/14/25)
https://www.cato.org/commentary/americas-middle-class-has-not-been-hollowed-out-far-it
- The Fifth Column, episode 528
Source: The Fifth Column
“President Comacho Delivers Peace, w/ Mary Katharine Ham.” (10/15/25)
https://www.wethefifth.com/p/528-president-comacho-delivers-peace
- Rising, 10/15/25
Source: The Hill
“Fox refuses to comply with new Pentagon press rules, signs joint statement.” (10/15/25)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5556398-rising-october-15-2025/
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 10/15/25
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Erupts at ABC Over Vance On-Air Fiasco as Presser Goes Off Rails.” (10/15/25)
https://newrepublic.com/article/201779/trump-erupts-abc-coverage-anger-presser-goes-off-rails
- Reason Interview: Ben Wizner
Source: Reason
“Can the ACLU Serve Progressives and Conservatives?” (10/15/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/10/15/can-the-aclu-serve-progressives-and-conservatives/?nab=1
- Collateral Damage, episode 2
Source: The Intercept
“A Death in the Dark: The Story of Ryan Frederick and Detective Jarrod Shivers.” (10/15/25)
https://theintercept.com/2025/10/15/collateral-damage-episode-two-death-dark/
- Questions for Corbett, 10/15/25
Source: The Corbett Report
“Is the US Government Fascist?” (10/15/25)
- Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 10/15/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“Trump: We May Have To ‘Violently’ Disarm Hamas, Israel Violates Ceasefire By Limiting Aid, and More.” (10/15/25)
- Conflicts of Interest, episode 845
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Is Israel Trying to Break the Ceasefire?.” (10/14/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/kyle/coi-845-is-israel-trying-to-break-the-ceasefire
- Politics Politics Politics, 10/14/25
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Are the Democrats Blowing It in Virginia? (with Kirk Bado).” (10/14/250
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/are-the-democrats-blowing-it-in-virginia